Innovation: The Basis of Cultural Change

Nigel B. Cook

Revised: 4 June 2014

“If all attempts that seemed wasteful in the light of generally accepted knowledge were

prohibited and only such questions asked, or such experiments tried, as seemed significant,

[scientists] attempt only those things which were totally predictable in their results.”

– Professor F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, London, 1960, pages 37-38.

“The first question I was asked was by Dr Jose, requesting the sources and literature supporting this

concept as well as data on previous trials and their conclusions … ‘This experiment hasn’t been done

before,’ I exclaimed proudly. ‘But we need to see prior work in this field,’ he countered. ‘That is a key

factor in our accepting experimental protocols!’ In that instant, I understood an intrinsic flaw in the

cancer research industry. In order to realise easy acceptance of ideas and receive grants, it was

important to show that you were travelling down the same well-worn path of prior investigations.”

– Dr Sam Chachoua, Nexus, December 1997-January 1998, page 76.

“Science is a discovery process in which hypotheses are put forward, tested through empirical

research and the gathering of data, and then revised to reflect the findings. Corrupted science,

however, is science that does not move from hypotheses to data to conclusion, but from mandated

or politically acceptable conclusion back to selected data in order to reach the mandated or

acceptable conclusion. It is a reverse and perverse methodology, in which the right answers are

known before the right questions …”

– J. Morris, Editor, Climatic Change, The Institute of Economic Affairs, London, I.E.A.

Studies on the Environment No. 10, December 1997, page 73.

“The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit

the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one

of the facts that needs altering.”

– Tom Baker (aka Dr Who script editor Douglas Adams)

“In a country where the sole employer [for example, for genuinely speculative scientific research]

is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation … who does not obey shall not eat.”

– Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, New York, 1937, page 76.

“Crimestop [i.e. anti-autism] means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold

of any dangerous [i.e. truly innovative] thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of

failing to perceive logical errors [in mainstream dogma, e.g. the eugenics anti-diversity biology and

anti-diversity information pseudo-science, developed by grandiose Darwinian technologists in England

but never blamed for the holocaust, because they censored out all critics as inexpert], of [deliberately]

misunderstanding the simplest arguments …”

– George Orwell, 1984, Chancellor Press, London, 1984, page 225.

“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from

the trees in the first place.”

– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The creative period passed away … The past became sacred, and all that it had produced, good and

bad, was reverenced alike. This kind of idolatry invariably springs up in that interval of langour and

reaction which succeeds an epoch of production … Imitation is inculcated as a duty, and novelty

regarded as a crime … Egypt stood still … Conventionality was admired, then enforced.”

– W. W. Reade, The Martyrdom of Man, chapter 1: war, 1872.

“Quantum mechanics is not itself a theory; rather, it is the framework … the abandonment of the

determinism that characterized the earlier ‘classical’ physics, since quantum mechanics permits,

even in principle, only the calculation of probabilities. … But in spite of this uniform success, we

do not yet fully understand, at the deepest level, what quantum mechanics really means,

especially for the universe as a whole. For more than 30 years some of us have been taking steps

to construct what I call the ‘modern interpretation’ of quantum mechanics, which permits it to

apply to the universe and also to deal with particular events ….”

– Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar, Little, Brown, N. Y., 1994, pages 6 and 19.

“Some of the suggestions for speeding up the process of conceiving a creative idea fit in well with the

picture of using a controlled level of noise to avoid getting stuck in too shallow a basin … [Edward]

DeBono likes to cite as an example a discussion of river pollution control, in which someone might

say, ‘What we really need is to make sure that factories are downstream from themselves.’ That is a

manifestly impossible suggestion, but someone else might then come up with a more serious proposal,

saying ‘You can do something like that if you require the intake of water at each factory to be

downstream from the effluent.’ The crazy idea can be regarded as a rise on a fitness landscape that can

lead to a much deeper basin that the one from which the discussion started. … David [Perkins, of the

Harvard Graduate School of Education] points out that research has identified a number of

characteristics of people who can repeatedly succeed … a dedication to the task, an awareness of being

trapped in an unsuitable basin [of inhibiting, dogmatic ideas], a degree of comfort with teetering on the

edge … a capacity for formulating as well as solving problems … as David notes, schools are just

about the only places where one typically finds problems already formulated.”

– Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar, Little, Brown, N. Y., 1994, pages 267-269.

“… the degree of skepticism that is applied should be appropriate to the challenge that the

alleged phenomenon presents to the accepted laws. … observational discoveries are being made

all the time that require revision of the empirical laws. … Over thirty years ago most geologists,

including almost all … at Caltech, were still contemptuously rejecting the idea of continental

drift. … I often argued with them about it at the time. They disbelieved in continental drift

despite mounting evidence in its favor. They had been taught that it was nonsense … the

geological community hadn’t thought of a plausible mechanism … But a phenomenon may

perfectly well be genuine even though no plausible explanation has yet turned up. … Planetary

scientists a couple of centuries ago committed the notorious mistake of debunking meteorites.

‘How can rocks fall from the sky,’ they objected, ‘when there are no rocks in the sky?’”

Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar, Little, Brown, N. Y., 1994, page 285.

“… Fact does not constitute the fundamental of the scientific method as it is actually used; theory does.

… a fact can be admitted to be a fact only when a theory exists which associates it with already

accepted data. The meaning of the facts, not the facts themselves, can be admitted … Science

[orthodoxy, officialdom, journals, peer-review consensus] will accept a fact as actually being a fact

only when it can be correlated and organized in the existent body of understanding … Since Science is

supposed to be ‘an organized body of knowledge,’ obviously knowledge that can’t be organized

[within the existing framework and existing foundations] doesn’t belong in the class ‘science’ until it

can be organized. … If Science is to consist of already organized knowledge, it must reject as science

anything which is not yet understood. The difficulty is that there’s a marked tendency to take the all-

too-easy next step and say that ‘… and if it isn’t scientific, it isn’t a fact.’ Evidence for this statement

of mine? Plenty. We could start with the history of Science’s attitude on ‘falling stars’ [meteors]. So

long as there was no place for meteors in the organization of Science … there could only be foolish

popular hysteria to account for reports of ‘falling stars,’ or ‘shooting stars.’ … but we now understand

how the observed facts can be related with our understanding … so ‘shooting stars’ can be accepted as

scientific. Until the cosmology was revised, however, falling stars remained a folk-superstition, and a

somewhat laughable imaginative idea of the less highly learned … Science does not accept facts – it

accepts meanings, organized facts, only. When … an organized theory … ties those phenomena in with

the already known and accepted phenomena of science … facts will be acceptable.”

– John W. Campbell, Editorial, “Meaning Wanted,” Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, v11,

no. 6, June 1955, pages 2-4. (Dogmatic Science is a bigoted group-think of corruptible undemocratic

dictatorship and unemotional “consensus” Luddite trade unions which use party politics “peer”-review

to censor rapid innovation, maximising pay and power for its members by slowing down progress, thus

milking research contracts for profit and to popularise media fashions, not facts.)

“By 1973, physicists had in place what was to become a fantastically successful theory of

fundamental particles and their interactions, a theory that was soon to acquire the name of the

‘standard model’. Since that time, the overwhelming triumph of the standard model has been

matched by a similarly overwhelming failure to find any way to make further progress on

fundamental questions.”

– Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong, Jonathan Cape, 2006, page 1.

“A closed system will reject new developments, and oppose any attempts to profit from them.

Koestler’s example of a closed system is the Communist ideology. … those within the system interpret

your criticisms as demonstrating far more yourself – your social and educational background, your

ignorance or intellectual incompetence, or your psychological hand-ups – than about the closed system

you (not they) think you are discussing. As a result, a closed system is not broken down, or even

modified, by rational argument. Rather, it dies when society walks away from it.”

– I. Catt, Electromagnetic Theory, v2, p262.

“In order to survive, a body of knowledge must attract funding. ‘Funding’ can mean, quite

crudely, supplies of cash. It can also mean support from acolytes, or ‘researchers’ willing to

‘work’ for nothing and in this way subsidize the body of knowledge. Instead of money, such

people accept as payment pieces of paper … ‘degrees’, institution membership, etc. … Credibility

is gained for such an institution of it owns leading knowledge brokers, or ‘experts’. An

individual achieves expert status by accumulating status symbols, from Nobel prizes down to …

becoming the editor of an obscure journal or by publishing papers and obscure books … By

indulging in non-remunerative activity, helpful to a body of knowledge, a would-be knowledge

broker gains ‘credit points’ for ‘selflessness’ and ‘scientific honesty.’ If he gains enough such

credit points, he may become one of the leading members of the knowledge establishment and

recoup his investment of unpaid toil during the previous decades. However, most people who run

in the ‘academic selflessness sweepstakes never recoup in cash terms, but have to be satisified

with … further pieces of paper … Fellow of the Institute, CBE, etc. …”

– I. Catt, The scientific reception system as a servomechanism, Journal of Information Science, v2,

pp. 307-8, December 1980 (funding science via educational dogma causes the corrupt censorship

of genuine critics who are perceived as threats to egotistical “prestige”, funding, and livelihoods).

DISTINGUISHING JUSTIFIED PROPAGANDA FROM UNJUSTIFIED PROPAGANDA FORMS

“We must not judge by what a man says if we have good reason to know that what he means is quite

different.”

– Oliver Heaviside, Electrical Papers, Macmillan, 1892, page 28.

Therefore, subtext is everything when dealing with the “worst form of propaganda”, which is not a

one-sided argument to combat and fight an existing dogmatic mainstream one-sided argument (the

“best form of propaganda”), but is a lying, obfuscated attack on an unpopular but true fact, an

appeasement of popular prejudice. The worst form of propaganda works indirectly by attacking an

opponent and using exaggerations of trivial defects in the opponent, as if those were somehow a direct

argument in favour for the particular alternative idea being suggested indirectly (which may have even

worse failings). The best form of propaganda is a direct, honest “one-sided argument” for an idea.

This “best form of propaganda” should be seen within its cultural context, where the opposite point of

view is already so over-hyped than nobody with an interest in the subject is in ignorance of that side!

In a communist or fascist state, you don’t need to present the case for communism or for fascism when

you criticise it, because it’s already so well known! When attacking entrenched over-hyped drivel, you

certainly don’t need to – and you should not – present a “balanced argument” containing an equal

number of “for” and “against” arguments that “balance out fairly” leading to ambiguous, indeterminate,

conclusions. The “worst form of propaganda” is not a one-sided argument, but rather is a camouflaged

argument which uses deliberate obfuscation used to sneak in a directly indefensible, false conclusion.

The traditional media “balanced argument” is actually obfuscation and therefore is the worst form of

propaganda if one side is right and the other side wrong, but the presentation is falsely “balanced” to

make them look morally equivalent or equally at fault.

In the Cold War, communists repeatedly failed to argue directly for a proof of communism, instead

attacking capitalism; claiming by implication that the faults of capitalism amount to a victory of the

communist case. This used the false and taboo premise that somehow communism is the only

meaningful alternative or solution to the cited problems of capitalism. In other words, this “worst form

of propaganda” obfuscated the facts by falsely assuming that the proof of problems with capitalism is

equivalent to having a proof of the validity of communism. Such specious arguments are particularly

suited to tribal chanting of slogans and brief bleating sound bites in BBC TV interviews, where there is

not the time (or the unbiased moderator) to allow convincing explanation of errors to viewers. If

capitalism has defects, alternative solutions to those defects exist, apart from having to accept

communism! But the popular media prefers to over-simplify, hence its concept of only two choices,

capitalism versus communism. So fault finding in one of two choices looks like a proof for the other.

The same occurs in science where two equally vacuous theories appear to battle it out, say string theory

versus loop quantum gravity. Both theories are actually spurious. Just because you have two sides

battling it out, that is not proof that one side is right and other is wrong; the truth could be an

unfashionable minority viewpoint which simply doesn’t have the army and munitions needed to do

battle and gain media attention. Similarly, just because two sides are fighting, it does not mean that

both sides are equally in the wrong. Propaganda of the worst form tries to draw unjustified conclusions

using appeals to emotional prejudice, in place of objective argument, which it then tries to censor out.

INTRODUCTION

H. G. Barnett was Professor of Anthropology at Oregon University when he wrote Innovation: the

Basis of Cultural Change (McGraw-Hill publishers, 1953). We review the book below.

The title of the book shows a clear problem with innovation: it involves change. Suppose you don’t

want change. You’re happy with status quo. You teach physics and know your job. The last thing you

want is any massive revolution, but that’s not what you’re thinking when you reject radical

revolutionary ideas. Instead of thinking like an evil conspiracy member, you think quite rationally and

reasonably: “most new ideas of a radical nature are wrong, so I’ll save myself a few hours of annoying

time-wasting by rejecting this paper without checking it out carefully. The probability that it will be a

mistake to do so is tiny, because most new radical innovations are “noise” and don’t go anywhere.

So why not spend a pleasant evening with my wife or friends instead? Even if I do get it wrong, I can

defend myself by saying the paper wasn’t clearly written or whatever, and as a last resort I can simply

put up my hand and admit to making an error and ‘only being human’. I’ve nothing to gain by

defending this guy, and everything to gain by ignoring him.” This is actually a rational enough, non-

conspiracy, explanation for much of the censorship that innovators in physics do experience, especially

when the have really radical ideas, aren’t well known, and when the mainstream is obsessed with

speculative superstring quackery which is popular.

The rejected author usually ends up in a row because the subjectiveness of the “peer” reviewer is pretty

obvious. The author will respond that the “peer” reviewer has ignored the substance of the paper and

hasn’t been objective or offered constructive criticism, but has just rejected pro-forma on the basis that

the type of content is “unsuitable” (closing down the discussion without leaving any room for a “time

wasting” discussion of exactly what the problem is). In a sense this is the age-old conspiracy of status

quo dominated “mainstream science” against radical ideas, for as Barnett states on pages 69-70:

“Murray’s study of nineteenth century scientific theories [Robert H. Murray, Science and Scientists in

the Ninteenth Century, London, 1925] is relevant at this point. His aim has been to show that important

new ideas of so recent a date were almost without exception ignored or rejected by the scientific

fraternity itself because they did not conform to one or another of the accepted doctrines of the leaders

of opinion. The observations and discoveries of Jenner, Simpson, Lyell, Pasteur, Darwin, Lister,

Helmholtz, Metchnikoff, and scores of lesser contributors were greeted with disdain or increduity.

Repeatedly their critics refused to even be shown. Helmholtz, for example, had difficulty getting

physiologists to pay any attention to his ophthalmoscope … Most illuminating of all is the fact that one

dogma fell only to be replaced with another. [Emphasis added]

“It would be unrealistic to believe that dogmatism in science ended in 1900. Even if we did not have

such flagrant examples as the Nazi doctrine of Aryan racial supremacy and the Communist credo of

dialectic materialism, it would not be difficult to point to less publicised instances. They are known to

every discipline in small or large degree. Every area of knowledge at the present time has its ‘big

names’ whose opinions in science and out of it carry weight and prevail over the views of lesser

lights just because they are recognised authorities. [Emphasis added] … It is as easy to be

pontifical in the scientific domain as in any other, especially after a lifetime of dedication to the proof

of an idea. Religion … can be thoroughly dogmatic … Dogmatism is a frequent concomitant of a

systematized creed and a well-institutionized priestly hierarchy. The essential condition is unified

control with a discipline that is dedicated to its unquestioning support. This condition directly parallels

the requirement for an authoritative secular administration. In both instances it is necessary that there

be only one source of truth and that the source be accorded enough power to enforce its dictates. In

religion this condition has been met by the exclusionist faiths … The authoritarian bias is strengthened

by the development of a priesthood … Heretical views may not be tolerated, not only because they are

contrary to the inveterate truths, but because they threaten the economic and the ideological

commitments of the church fathers.”

REVIEW OF INNOVATION: THE BASIS OF CULTURAL CHANGE

Chapter 1, The Protagonists, on pages 17-18 discusses protagonists of innovation who argue the case

that:

“man is by nature a mentally lazy and complacent creature who has to be shocked or forced into

the conception of a new idea. [Emphasis added] … vigorous and violent resistance … typically greets

departures from tradition. … [due to factors like] the inclination that men have for imitating others …

Their opponents [the censors of innovation] … admit that new ideas are usually resisted but point

out that in spite of this deterrent they continue to occur. [Emphasis added] … To those who

maintain that new ideas are rare, inventors [of popular ideas] are in some measure always geniuses.

They are exceptional individuals with uncommon intellectual capacities and strong motivations. …

Their basic innovations usually initiate a series of new developments that have had to await a

foundation. These sequels are merely ‘elaborations’ and ‘improvements’ made by lesser men. …”

The first thing to be said is that Barnett basis his book on innovation across six different cultures, five

being ethnic groups (three Western American Indian tribes, Europeans, and the Palauans of

Micronesia), plus one religious group (the Shakers). Barnett organizes his analysis of innovation by its

incentives, its processes and its acceptance or rejection decisions.

First, innovation is the cause of wars and cultural shifts in society caused by clashes either between

civilizations or between immigrants and indigenous peoples who resent innovative customs that don’t

fit accepted habits of their society. Such innovative immigrants are then outcasts and other groups will

tend to use them as scape-goats for society’s ills, whether rightly so or not. British Protestant

immigrants to Ireland over three hundred years ago, for example, resulted in a long history of friction.

The same occurs today with the Jewish state of Israel and the more militant Shia Moslem Palestinians

who would prefer the Jews to go away.

Second, the “genius” myth needs discussion. As Barnett wrote, those who ignore innovations are rare

tend to claim that any good innovations will be due to geniuses, so there is no problem. If someone is

clever enough to discover a usefully predictive theory of quantum gravity, for example, surely they’re

clever enough to convince someone with influence of what they’ve done, and thus to market the idea.

Therefore, there is no problem of censorship. Censorship is needed to protect society from being

submerged in noise made by loud-mouthed quacks and cranks who distract attention from good

science. To put it another way: why don’t these geniuses simply rise to the situation of being a famous

professor or President, and then use their position of power to announce their discovery? The problem

here is again that this causes wars and completely misses the whole point about a major motivation for

radical innovation being dissatisfaction with status quo. In other words, many radical innovators have

tried to succeed within status quo, become dissatisfied with it, and become radicals. It is precisely the

schism with orthodoxy that leads to the innovation, so it’s asking too much to expect every innovator to

be a card-carrying member of the orthodoxy, especially when the orthodoxy has a suspicious paranoia

towards revolutionaries.

It’s like saying that if you don’t like Hitler/Stalin, you should become a Nazi/Communist Party

Member in order to have a chance of nicely persuading Hitler/Stalin to reform. There are a couple of

reasons why you would not expect this to be a successful policy. You would understand Hitler/Stalin

well enough to realize that a criticism of such paranoid people would be taken by such dictators as with

hostility and you’d be labelled a dimwit or a traitor, and if you persisted in being a nuisance, you’d be

“fired” (maybe with a bullet). The over-hyped “do gooders” who believe dogmatically in the letter of

the law and not the spirit of the law, will always insist on peaceful negotiation from a position of

weakness, neglecting the inevitable failure of right versus might (Chamberlain vs Hitler at Munich).

Lord Acton put it neatly: “All power corrupts …” If you don’t have a gun, you won’t be taken

seriously. For this reason, wars occur. Terrorism is reversal of Clausewitz’s dictum that war is an

extension of politics: terrorism is an attempt to start politics. Terrorists want a place at a negotiating

table or a voice in society. Because they’re a minority, democracy does them no favours. They have

no power to speak, so they try to get it by using bombs or bullets. The first response of the opponent is

naturally outrage, not a statement: “we’re behind the terrorism because we suppressed these terrorist

when they just wanted a voice, thus forcing them to resort to violence!” We’re not condoning violence

here, but we point out that if you want to understand it, you might want to consider whether it is

actually a response to censorship of freedom of speech, rather that accept official propaganda which

insists it’s irrational and that everyone has freedom of speech.

Taboos on free speech are enforced by ex-communication and censorship (“this correspondence is now

closed”, “you mustn’t make provocative statements”, “Godwin’s Law prohibits that complaint of yours

from being made”) are routinely applied. Orwellian “doublethink” and “groupthink” censor out radical

ideas as being provocative, speculative, or boring. As Orwell wrote in 1984, “crimestop means …

being bored or repelled” by taboo heresy. Taboos hold up progress so are a conservative political tool,

often “justified” by speculative fear-mongering about the dangers of innovation for society, while

ignoring or downplaying problems with status quo. E.g., ignoring the risks that come from an enforced

stagnation of society against progress, justified by mottos like “if it works, don’t fix it!”

USSR Marxism and Nazi eugenics were excellent examples of groupthink pseudosciences which

subjectively censor out individualism and free thinking as being disloyal to society. Bigoted

dictatorships like these carry heavy propaganda apparatus which claims them to be progressive and

wonderful, and it is extremely hard for outsiders to combat the resources of the propaganda machine.

This also applies to a loner developing a theory of quantum gravity, for example, and being compared

to the output of mainstream propaganda from the multimillion funded string theory lobby. It’s pretty

obvious who gets the most media attention, and who gets the funds to promote their theory with TV

series and glossy adverts masquerading as objective “peer”-reviewed scientific journal papers. The

Marxist appeals also asserted that innovators who spoke out in favour of changing the system were

selfish publicity seekers, arguing in effect “we must all agree to the same Marxist dogma to eliminate

differences and to increase our unity of purpose, to decrease division and reduce dissent and misery!”

The string theory community is similarly bigoted against radical criticisms of its foundations yet

pretends, just like the USSR, to be progressive and welcoming of genuine debate and innovation! The

key point is that the idea “so many people can’t all be wrong” doesn’t apply when all are adherents to a

falsehood. Going back to Barnett, in Chapter 2, “The Cultural Background” he states on page 40:

“The Size and Accumulation of Ideas. The size and complexity of the cultural inventory that is

available to an innovator establishes limits within which he must function. The state of knowledge and

the degree of its elaboration during his day, the range and kind of artifacts, techniques, and instruments

that he can use, make some new developments possible and others impossible. The mere accumulation

… allows for more new combinations and permits more different avenues of approach in

problem solution than does a small one. [Emphasis added] … Einstein could scarcely have

developed his theory of relativity had he lived in the Neolithic age, nor could the atomic bomb have

been invented in the days of Newton. The cultural base must provide the materials for further

development. If the necessary ingredients are not contained in the inventory that is available, a new

idea involving them is obviously impossible.

“Sometimes the question of availability of innovative resources relates to the intellectual perspective of

the innovator. His cultural horizon may be limited to the knowledge that exists only within his own

society, or it may extend beyond … With well-developed channels of communication there goes a

greater possibility of building up intellectual resources.”

This is the crux of radical innovation: can you learn enough to find good raw tools to innovate with?

In addition to this accumulation of ideas, Barnett on pages 41-42 argues that:

“Important as it is, the accumulation of ideas provides only a minimum condition for innovation. If the

elements of the cultural inventory remain disparate and disconnected in time and place, the situation is

no more propitious for innovation than it is when the resources of the society are scanty. The cultural

materials that provide the basis for a new conception must come to a focus in the mind of some

individual. There must be a concentration of ideas in the personal experience of the innovator. …

“Some societies provide more opportunity for a concentration of ideas that do others [the USSR spent

the Cold War spying on American industrial innovations, because the socialist “equal pay” society

failed to provide enough sticks and/or carrots to motivate rapid progress of the American sort] and,

consequently, a more stimulating climate for change. Where there are any cultural or natural barriers

to an exchange of ideas, there will be proportionately less opportunity for their mixing and

remodelling. Thus, the physical isolation of people, for whatever cause, hinders their

intercommunication and therefore the concentration of ideas.”

I disagree because it’s often quicker and more satisfactory to read articles or books in a library, than to

spend hours having conversations that ramble off topic, where you have to listen to irrelevant gibberish

in an effort to be “polite”. It’s more efficient and quicker to read a book or then use the contents page

and index, than to speak to people. (The “conferences of physics” are tax-dodging excuses for

vacations in exotic locations, in addition to a socialist/comradeship group-think paper-printing aspect.)

Collaboration can even occur indirectly in competitions. Take the analogy of a running race with

runners in different lanes parallel to one another, all racing beside one another at the same time. They

are competing but can be motivated by one another. At first, on a long race, they may mostly stick

together running slowly at first in a pack to maximise endurance, use each other as pacers, and to

conserve their energy for a sprint near the end. Then at some point one or two will begin to break away

and make the final sprint. If they break away too soon, they will lose energy and be overtaken. I

always found this kind of race scientifically absurd and unfairly daunting to runners with inferiority

complexes. Why not be fair, and eliminate psychological factors by allowing each runner run

separately in isolation, timed by a stopwatch? Then compared times, determine the fastest time and

announce the winner. The usual answer is the anti-communist statement that competition has a

collaborative aspect to it: people enjoy running in a pack and are motivated by beating others. In other

words, far from seeking to “fit in” or be individuals, people actually do best in competition.

Barnett discusses “The collaboration of effort” on page 43:

“The likelihood that a new idea will develop is enhanced if several individuals are simultaneously and

cooperatively exploring the same possibility. A collaboration of effort not only pools the concentration

of ideas of several individuals, but also increases the chances that one of them will solve their common

problem. Moreover, their interactions are mutually stimulating. The views of one collaborator are an

impetus to new ideas by the others. … Collaboration … is not a natural phenomenon … It is culturally

induced and sanctioned. … In our own society … where the scientific tradition has been so firmly

implanted, there are numerous institutions which encourage the collaboration of effort in scientific

discovery and invention. Professional associations, study groups, clubs, and cults are organized for the

interchange of ideas. Symposia, conferences, workshops, institutions … numerous publications to

announce the results of researches and to publicise new knowledge and new theories.”

I disagree. All this long list is corrupted (Lord Acton: “All power corrupts …”) by petty bureaucrats

and by big bandits. Most “scientific” journals that censor out new facts also now hide their articles

behind expensive pay-by-article fire-walls to effectively ban the spread of knowledge, preventing poor

“outsiders” having any access! Collaboration is anti-revolutionary in its nature; it is the antithesis of

revolutionary science. In fact, well-meaning efforts to collaborate in my experience lead to the exact

opposite: lying agreements where someone nods as you explain something complex very carefully, and

then they smile and say the exact opposite (ignoring all you’ve said, or demonstrating that they haven’t

understood or listened, but have still misled you by nodding instead of having a debate or details!),

paranoid hysteria, personal abuse, destructive conflict, stealing ideas (academic plagarization), etc.

In 1996, shortly after developing the kernel of my idea for quantum gravity calculations, I had the

misfortune to read a long humble-sounding letter bemoaning censorship of physics in Electronics

World written by the electronics innovator, wafer-scale integration pioneer Ivor Catt, and wrote a reply.

A long correspondence began with Catt initially expressing some sympathy and interest in the physics I

was concerned with. However, as time went on it became clear that he would not enter any discussion

of the kind of physics I was doing, regardless of how long I spent looking into his work and writing

about it, including some I wrote in Electronics World. He wanted nothing to do with quantum theories!

Nor does anyone else. After six years of censorship by journals, an attempt to start a discussion on the

Physics Forums internet site in 2002 simply attracted ignorant abuse by people who had no interest and

used false sneering arguments to avoid reading my paper, attacking previous theories deemed “similar”

which were wrong and which my paper had corrected. An appeal to the moderators to eliminate this

kind of Nazi-like abuse from quacks who had nothing to say about my paper on a thread of discussion I

had started simply led to abuse from the moderators of Physics Forums who also hadn’t read my paper

and had no interest in it, followed by a closure of the discussion. It’s worse than merely “a waste of

time and effort” trying to get collaboration: the mainstream is bigoted and abusive towards innovation.

Collaboration is groupthink socialism, party politics. If you’re really original, by definition you’re

going to be in conflict with others. Barnett on page 44 admits that science does have another form of

collaboration of an informal, “impersonal and indirect” kind through reading simply publications:

“The individuals who participate in it often do not know each other; they have never met and there is

no direct communication between them. Yet they … are familiar with what is common knowledge in

the field. … Informal collaboration is the explanation for numerous instances of independent and often

simultaneous inventions. Ogburn and Thomas have compiled a list of almost 150 of these parallels [W.

F. Ogburn, Social Change, Viking Press, N. Y., 1938, pp. 90-102].”

On page 46, Barnett more usefully considers the evidence for innovation to arise not through

collaboration or cooperation, but through war and conflict. WWI, WWII and the Cold War directly

and indirectly created the technology and science we now enjoy. Quantum mechanics was a reaction to

the fall of the Weimar Republic as explained by Paul Forman in 1971. The first computers were built

to break the German message codes like “Enigma” and “Fish”, to predict the energy releases from

different designs of nuclear weapons, and later were miniaturised with microchips to guide missiles.

No matter how much you detest war and conflict, you have to admit that wars of liberation and also

civil wars led to many modern democracies including France, Britain, and America. Without conflict

and war you get eternal dictatorship, censorship and stagnation. Barnett on page 46:

“The Conjunction of Differences. Teggart, the historian [Frederick Teggart, The Process of History,

Yale U. P., 1918, p. 112], has insisted that the ‘great advances of mankind have been due, not to the

mere aggregation, assemblage, or acquisition of disparate ideas, but to the emergence of a certain type

of mental activity which is set up by the opposition of different idea systems.’ In his opinion … new

ideas … arise only when the clash of ideas provokes comparisons and critical discussions of the

differences. The individual is thereby released from the trammels of tradition and is able to

express himself in the organization of new customs.” [Emphasis added]

Wars and conflicts break down taboos and traditions: women got the vote as a result of their work in

factories during WWI, similarly, the British colonies in India and Africa were given independence after

WWII was fought on the banner of freedom and independence. Two billion dollars wouldn’t have

been secretly spent on nuclear fission from 1942-5 in the absence of war. Fears and conflicts don’t just

motivate money squandering; they also motivate individuals to work on solving hard problems quickly.

Put it this way: if there hadn’t been WWII but for some reason Uncle Sam still allocated two billion

dollars to nuclear fission, the results would have been much slower. The scientists would have milked

the research budgets, and trying to get job security for life by working “steadily” instead of rushing to a

quick conclusion.

We see this effect in the history of the aeroplane, where the Wright brothers built and flew the first

aircraft on a shoestring without media interest, while a lavishly funded academic attracted press

attention despite failing with an immense budget and better access to aerodynamic theories. The

Smithsonian Museum, which had sponsored the quack, actually displayed the charlatan’s aeroplane for

decades, mislabelled as the first powered flight craft! It was taboo to admit that the first powered flight

was made by a couple of bicycle repair shop owners on a shoestring budget, after a learned professor

with war department and Smithsonian funding had failed. Barnett discusses taboos on page 320:

“In 1819 the high chief Liholiho of Hawaii dramatically renounced the taboo system which, among

other things, forbade women to eat certain foods and men and women to eat together. Except among

the small group of his inciters, his revolutionary action was shocking. He, like Ikhnaton, was divine

and his power absolute; but this status did not induce his subjects to embrace his blasphemy. On the

contrary, he was denounced by many and had to fight a civil war to maintain his position, a war that he

was able to win only because of a superiority granted him by the possession of alien firearms.

[Reference cited: James Jackson Jarves, History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, E. Moxon,

London, 1843, pp. 197-200.]”

This is of course the “start the revolution by becoming the leader” delusion: leaders can’t innovate in a

revolutionary way if the revolution is unpopular. Leaders only lead because they tell their people what

they want to hear. The moment the leader tells the people that he’s going to do something unpopular,

trouble arises. The leader is then opposed, deposed, forced to conform to popular opinion, or forced to

become a dictator and use the power of a police state to carry out his popular wishes. This is why

leaders in democracies go to immense propaganda efforts to disguise unpopular policies as wonderful

ideas, instead of being truthful and admitting they’re unpopular but necessary because of a shortage of

money or the result of a government error or policy failure. Similarly, we can expect concerns to

weigh on the minds of “leaders or editors of science journals” who don’t want to take risks with

unpopular revolutionary ideas that upset the readers and cause the editor to lose credibility and power.

In other words, there are limits to power that are easily ignored by revolutionaries in the foothills, who

cannot understand why the leadership is so conservative. The reason for being conservative is to

maximise social harmony and maintain power. Even so-called “Marxist” leaders are really

conservative, keeping to old ideas and suppressing radical demands for innovation and improvement.

On page 65, Barnett discusses the effects of authority versus social freedom on innovation potential:

“The Dependence upon Authority. There is a positive correlation between individualism and

innovative potential. The greater the freedom of the individual to explore his world of experience and

to organize its elements in accordance with his private interpretation … the greater the likelihood of

new ideas coming into being. Contrariwise, the more the reliance upon authoritative dictates, the less

the frequency of new conceptualizations. When individuals are taught to revere and fear authority

as the ultimate source of the good, the true, and the proper, they cannot be expected to have

variant notions. When they are indoctrinated with the virtue of dependency, the ideals of

curiosity, personal inquiry, and evaluation are denigrated [Emphasis added] …”

Education is always concerned with authority, even with playing games according to fixed rules, as

Plato pointed out in The Laws. The danger of innovation that Plato warned of is that children get

confused between right and wrong if free-thinking and rule changing is allowed. This is the “danger”

of the football game in which the goalposts are constantly being moved around and the rules of the

game are being changed without notice. It is the “danger” of the changing textbook which confuses the

student who receives references to a particular page from a tutor or a particular “fact” which gets

changed between editions as knowledge accumulates, when the exam papers are based on the old

edition of the textbook. In a university course in the 1990s, the tutor sent out a warning letter to buy

the old edition of a textbook on The Holocene before the revised one replaced it, simply because the

course and exams had been prepared printed using page numbering and text in the old edition. This

shows the basic conflict between educational exams and research. Barnett, page 66:

“… indoctrinating the young with group standards in accordance with parental interpretations of them

is by nature an authoritarian mechanism. The aim of the elders is to inculcate norms, and this must

mean the ignoring or overriding of individual differences in attempts to level them. The aim of

standardization is never fully realized, and is perhaps scarcely ever fully intended. Individual

differences always remain, but the program is basically and severely delimitative of personal whim and

preference. And it is ex cathedra. It does not tolerate rational inquiry. It maintains itself by fiat and

coercion … socialization as such is an authoritarian device …”

Coercion is often welcomed and demanded by those who become reliant upon divine authority as a

source of guidance and security, for example in religious dogmas and popular politics. This conflicts

with individualism. Individuals always lose to socialists: “might is right”. The fact that individuals, by

definition, lack strength of numbers makes them lose any conflict against collaborations or gangs.

WHY PEOPLE INNOVATE

Barnett on page 101: “In many instances, people strive deliberately for novelty with the recognised

purpose of receiving credit for their cleverness.”

People work for money, or praise. There is nothing special about business, which is the same thing. If

you acquire skills to prune trees, you seek to be paid or at least praised for implementing that

knowledge. If you develop a working theory of quantum gravity, and have to struggle spending time

and effort to get it well presented and appreciated, you might expect some kind of book deal or other

financial recompense, or at least morale raising support. If you are merely attacked and called “selfish”

or “capitalist” for innovating, well, those charges could be levelled at anyone in business, and if you

have not sought money or praise, then such charges are plain lies. Barnett on page 103 states that for

other innovators:

“… monetary considerations are irrelevant. Their fundamental craving is for power, and they exploit

the admiration that inventive genius inspires to gain a following. Thus, cult leaders ... who pride

themselves upon their popularity are less interested in the merits of their ideas than in the favorable

impression that they themselves make.”

These cult leaders who want a following rather than wanting to understand the world and get their ideas

right, are dangerous and are behind the mainstream fallacies like the intrinsically non-falsifiable

superstring theory. They want power of the political party popularity sort, or the religious dogma sort.

On page 105, Barnett discusses the fact that innovations are made despite the censorship risks and

fears:

“In the first place, it is a well-recognised fact that now all new ideas receive a public welcome. On the

contrary, many are rejected and their proponents scoffed at or reprobated. This to some extent true of

the majority of innovations, but it is a marked public reaction to new ideas in the conservative aspects

of a culture, as in the religious field … Despite this deterrent, new ideas constantly appear, even when

the innovator fully anticipates the disfavor that he brings upon himself. Indeed most innovators soon

learn, if they do not already know, that rewards, if they come at all, must be won by auxiliary means,

irrespective of the intrinsic merits of their ideas.

“Secondly, many innovations are made without any thought of credit [accidental ideas or discoveries

for instance, including quantum gravity predictions in 1996]. … he is more likely to become infamous

than famous because of them, and he knows it [this accounts for why I have not been able to get any

objective Q.G. discussions with anyone like “peer” reviewers, let alone find a collaborator!].

“Thirdly, some innovators disavow or reject credit for valuable ideas. … under certain circumstances

this is merely a culturally dictated pretension: a manifestation of false modesty … a lip service to the

social depreciation of materialistic self-seeking. The person who makes a point of disclaiming credit

when he knows that he deserves it may sense that more good is going to accrue to him just because he

belittles his own talents. … he simply recognises that it is more advantageous for him to conform to

ideals than to fight them.”

FORCING INNOVATION FOR SURVIVAL OR TO REDUCE PAIN

Your plane crashes in the jungle, the wreckage hidden from aerial view by the tree canopy, and you

have to innovate over your diet because there’s no restaurant handy. At first, you go without, but

eventually pain of hunger means you have to resort to innovating by sampling the local wild fruits and

so on. You might sample small amounts of wild berries at first to see if they are toxic. It they go down

with no problems after a few hours, you will feed safe to eat more of the same sort. This kind of

innovation is forced on people by pain, hunger. Similarly, Hitler pressures on scientists led to V1

cruise missiles and V2 inertially guided IRBM rockets, both with 1 ton warheads, a major innovation

for a dictatorship, and the USSR put both the first satellite (Sputnik, Russian for “fellow traveller,” a

Cold War communist sympathiser term) and the first man in space. Barnett states on page 164:

“When a penalty is attached to ignorance, the gamble of a guess is preferable to failure; and the result

is frequently novel.”

In other words, if you threaten to fire scientists, or end funding contracts, and if they can’t bring out a

general strike in the country or get irrationally screaming power-crazed Guardian newspaper columnist

kids to “defend” them on BBC TV propaganda “news politics shows”, then they might stop sending

back reports stating “more research is always needed before we come to any conclusion on anything,

ever.” Then they might actually stick their necks out, formulate a hypothesis and test it. In other

words, pressure in some cases may force scientists and other people out of their complacent ivory

tower and into the real world of business, i.e. returning significant results in return for their pay check!

However, Barnett adds on pages 164-5 that such pressures lead to liars telling lies to get squeeze out:

“Forced guessing of this sort also warps the courtroom testimony of witnesses and that of anyone else

entrusted with valued information or somehow supposed to be in possession of it. … Several venerable

self-defense mechanisms that aim at avoiding punishment appear … One such is the argument ad

hominem which resorts to personal attacks upon an opponent to distract attention from the threatening

ideas or principles that he represents. Closely related is the technique of issuing a cross complaint or

making a countercharge which seeks to turn attention away from one’s own vulnerability by exposing

and magnifying the weaknesses of an opponent. The ‘red-herring’ technique [today called the “data

dump” method of science propaganda, i.e. delivering a vast number of weak or useless bits of

research and pretending that if you just have a vast enough collection of trash to throw at en

enemy, the huge number of lies adds to the equivalent of one strong argument; this is used in

IPCC environmentalism scare-mongering for socialist world government type political agendas,

please see our vixra review of Delingpole’s Watermelons] is also a tactic to confuse issues and

disorient attackers.

“The resort to devices for the suppression [subjectively “closing down the argument” if you know

you can’t win rationally, i.e. labelling opponents as “imperialists,” “warmongers”, etc., in place

of addressing the substance of the argument in an objective, honest manner] … is a common

practice where it can be brought into play. Suppression need not require anything more original that

the application of force; but the need for security has at times evoked remarkably subtle and diversified

methods of gaining and maintaining information controls, ranging from propaganda to blackmail. The

nullification of damaging rumors and opinions by supplanting or converting them also calls for talent,

as when an individual or a political party accepts an epithet hurled in malice and turns it into an asset

[e.g. Russia news media labelled Thatcher an “Iron Lady” with intentional rude malice for

opposing dictatorship in the name of communism; but she openly accepted that label with

alacrity as a sign of strength and resolve!] or deflects it and causes it to boomerang.”

On page 166, Barnett explains how coercion from experimental data based on nature itself force Max

Planck to reluctantly develop a quantum theory of radiation. Note that Planck’s derivation of his

equation fails to discriminate between spontaneous and stimulated emissions, and Einstein provided a

better derivation of Planck’s equation later. As with the original derivation of Maxwell’s equations

from a mechanical model by Maxwell in 1861 to fit the speed of light in 1856 deduced by Webber

from combining electric and magnetic force law constants, Planck’s fiddled a theory to model the

experimental spectrum curve of radiating power versus wavelength! This fiddling was scientific,

although Einstein’s derivation fifteen years later was mechanically accurate, Planck had made a vital

first step. Planck’s equation, like Maxwell’s vital gear cog “displacement current” equation “needed

for mathematical symmetry” (when Maxwell’s laws are written in Heaviside’s vector calculus form,

originating in 1875, after Maxwell’s death), is right but his reasoning in the derivation was inadequate.

However, it was still science, it was progress; like Archimedes’ argues in his Method many if not all

great mathematical laws start off as guesses and the valid proofs are constructed later. The little

smatterers of mathematics who try to dismiss early first-draughts of new mathematical laws of nature

as being based on flimsy or false premises miss this point. You don’t dismiss an artist or a writer for

producing a first draft that is poorer than the final finished product! The usual tendency for the

“professional” to try to cover up, deny and hide evidence of inferior early stages of a book, painting or

equation is dangerously harmful to students and to the future of science. It is often caused by bigots

who want to ignore the finished product by sneering at weaknesses in the development of the idea.

Archimedes’ Method which exposes the “tricks of the trade” is like a magician giving away his secrets.

The problem with “professionals” generally is their desire to close ranks against outsiders, to dismiss

“amateurs” as “unprofessional”. Problem is, “professional” means business, i.e. making cash, getting

money and thus influence and power by what they’re doing which can lead to corrupt business

practices like cartel mafia agreements: unwritten attempts to corner and divide up the market,

exploiting/shafting customers by ramping up costs for profit, ensuring than any outsider entering the

business to provide genuine competition gets bricks through their shop window daily and gangs of

chanting thugs outside their premises by day, to drive away any customer, until they go bankrupt.

Anyone professional is making a living out of what they’re doing. Some may try to do so honestly,

others less honesty, and the ratio of honesty to dishonesty is controlled by the enforcement available.

If IPCC scare mongering and screaming thugs from the Guardian newspaper on the BBC news politics

propaganda channel of TV shut down research on objectively investigating shortcomings in one

research dogma, then honest brokers will be forced out of town. (If there is any IPCC fact accidentally

published in their lies filled reports, it’s well camouflaged by bigoted lunacy, plus biased subjectivity.)

This is because honest science simply can’t compete with state-sponsored liars who undercut them,

churning out “scientific papers” full of lies at the rate of hundreds a week, “peer”-reviewed by bigots

with a warped political agenda which censors as “suspect” anything honest. Professionalism is all well

and good when it can be kept honest. But thug gangs running “eugenics science” for a profit constitute

professionalism gone wrong. Hitler was a professional fascist. That doesn’t do credit to professionals!

Barnett, page 166:

“Planck postulated the existence of quanta of energy because that was the only conception of it that

could be described mathematically. No one had been able to set up an equation to describe the

emission of light from a luminous body as a continuous stream of energy [so Planck was forced

reluctantly into making the radical departure from accepted Maxwell type continuous waves to quanta]

… The contradiction between the requirements of logic and the existing theory of the nature of energy

transmission finally compelled Planck to reject the stream theory and to postulate that radiant energy is

emitted in pulsations or quanta that vary in amount with the frequency of the light. … out of this

conception developed the theories and researches of Einstein, Bohr, Rutherford, and others to

revolutionize the Newtonian concepts regarding matter and its motion.”

In other words, Planck had to overcome hostility and group-think to set in place a revolution, later

writing in his Scientific Autobiography that none of his hardened dogmatic opponents were ever won

over, and instead his scientific theory became popular one death at a time, as his opponents died off.

This isn’t really the best selling slogan for the objectivity of the scientific enterprise, so it’s usually

downplayed in adverts for science. The marketing side of science prefers to present an objective

scientific revolution as being welcomed and scientists as being prepared to change their views. They

don’t want to admit that professional scientists are more bigoted and entrenched by the most illiberal

bigots of warped religious hate mongering dogmas! It’s not surprising. (If you are paid for results and

have to attract kids into science, and you can’t do anything to reduce bigotry in science, then tell lies!)

Notice that Planck was reluctant to innovate because he knew it would be “controversial” on principle,

regardless of whether he was technically right or wrong. As Robert Kennedy said, progress requires

change, which has its enemies, and 5% of the world is against everything all of the time. That 5% is

more vocal than the other 95%, so the 5% of the world composed of screaming bigots, strikers and

militaristic Luddite terrorists or marching “environmentalist” left wing communist cranks that oppose

progress, get into the TV and media by being disruptive or blowing people up. The views of the other

95% aren’t expressed emotionally in the media. So the media by its very nature tends to give the

oxygen of publicity to minorities that resort to disruptive attention seeking, downing out rational

voices by raising the “noise level” with Orwellian “four legs good, two legs better” slogan-bleating.

THE PROBLEM OF FAMOUS PEOPLE NOT TURNING INTO REVOLUTIONARIES

Barnett on page 319 addresses the problem of famous people not turning into revolutionaries. If you

are unknown and start announcing a scientific discovery from a soap box in Speaker’s Corner, you’ll

be heckled by bored who will suggest you first use your “genius” to become famous, and then come

back to the soap box, and people will then be prepared to listen without heckling and downing you out.

But there some problems with this. First, you might have been driven into your innovation not by

being a “genius” in orthodox status quo (which is more likely to lead to being welcomed and appeased

by status quo) but by being an outcast with a hearing or speech problem (or both) or some other

disability. Many innovations result because people become fed up with the existing mainstream

propaganda machine. In other words, the innovator may be actually motivated by the need to be

heretical to a system he or she despises. The mistake is made by “critics” of such innovators that they

aren’t “successful” because they are not welcomed with open arms by the mainstream that they hate!

For example, some biographers of Oliver Heaviside have criticised him for his attacks on Sir William

Preece, a bigwig who ignored Heaviside’s correct suggestion that adding loading coils to transmission

lines would increase the inductance and thereby minimise frequency-dependent distortion. Basically,

Preece thought resistance and poor cable design was the problem, and that some kind of improved

cable would prevent distortion. Heaviside theoretically proved that transmission lines (pairs of wires to

carry electricity) have magnetic inductance and capacitance in addition to having mere resistance. The

inductance and capacitance can’t be overcome by simply adding an amplifier: you just get a louder

distortion! To clear up the muffled speech over long distance voice carrying analogue signal wired

telegraph lines, you need to understand the cause: that different frequencies are being attenuated

differently. The telegraph line is acting as a frequency dependent filter, which causes voice distortion.

To overcome this, you add loading coils that act as natural frequency resonators for the most severely

attenuated frequencies, cancelling out the distortion. Sure, Preece was right that adding loading coils

effectively adds to the resistance of the transmission line. You need to use more power or have more

amplification when using loading coils, but it’s the only way to solve the problem.

As Head of British Post Office Research on voice telephones, Preece’s decision to dismiss Heaviside’s

loading coils idea prevented them being patented in Britain (an American called Pupin eventually

patented them, making millions). Heaviside didn’t have the money and resources to get a patent and

start manufacture by himself, so it ruined Heaviside’s financial stability and also postponed British

long distance distortion free telegraphy for twenty years! Heaviside, who first in 1875 wrote the so-

called “Maxwell equations” in vector calculus form to show symmetry, was an “amateur”

mathematician whose hearing problems had cost him a career. By ignoring him, Sir William Preece

made a powerful enemy. Heaviside mocked Preece with poems printed at the beginning of his articles

published in electrical industry trade magazines. Eventually Preece’s entourage forced the editor to

stop publishing Heaviside. But Preece was a “joke” inside the industry. The censorship just made him

into a dictator.

Now some biographers of Heaviside point out that he was a “loser” who should have appeased Preece

and tried more diplomacy. Actually, the same could have been said by biographers of Jesus in

describing the quarrel between Jesus and the High Priest. You could say “Jesus was a loser because he

failed to be diplomatic enough and thereby got crucified!” The problem here is that Jesus and his

followers didn’t judge “success” and “failure” by the criterion of whether or not you manage to

appease a big wig dictator with a Knighthood from king, queen or elected politician, sufficiently to get

a nod of approval! Instead, the motivation of Heaviside and perhaps of Jesus was to not to win over

status quo, but to go around the back of it, to ridicule it as absurd and to reduce its pompous arrogance.

Judged by that criterion, you don’t see these people as “losers”. In fact, you see the people applying

“loser” labels and stickers as narrow-minded, “authority”-appeasing, dictatorship-appeasing bigots.

Such “biographers” of Heaviside have completely ignored the most elementary basis for his

motivation, which was to effectively stick up a finger at pomp and ceremony, not to become part of it.

To such “biographers” who judge “success” purely on financial rewards and Knighthoods, Jesus was

probably a “loser/failure who was charmless, rude, sulky and non-diplomatic got himself crucified.”

Again, we stress that this tells you more about the “biographer”’s arrogant incompetence and narrow-

minded bigotry than it tells you about the subject the “biographer” is supposed to be writing about.

Barnett on page 319 explains the limitations and the influences that coerce the “famous” quacks:

“Esteem is based upon past performance, and this fact establishes a liability as well as an asset. An

eminent man owes something to his admirers, and one of his obligations is to meet their expectations of

him. These expectations may be imposed upon him because of the status accorded him by birth, or

they may be extrapolations based upon his achievements. In either case they impose restraints upon

his behavior and forbid radical departures from the norm that has been determined for him or

that he has evolved for himself. A reputation is an obligation to conform, and it permits little

freedom in advocating novel ideas.” [Emphasis added]

If that is true, then radical innovators don’t want “fame” or should not want “fame”. The basic

problem is, like a pile of money, fame is something that is hard to come by and easy to lose, so it is

the source of worry and leads to self-censorship and a lack of flippancy for fear of ridicule, etc.

Barnett in chapter 10, “The Advocates of Change” (page 291) moves on to discuss how changes do

occur, by trying to define the people who advocate change. As we have just explained, famous people

do not as a rule advocate change once they are famous. They may become famous for implementing a

change, but then – once famous – they are forced to become relatively conservative by being given a

peerage, knighthood, or making easy money out of fame, for fear of becoming unpopular and losing

their fame. Alternatively, if they do continue to be revolutionaries once famous, they are soon labelled

as controversy and publicity seekers and go out of fashion, are ridiculed and lose fame.

So how can there be any advocates of change, and who are these advocates? Barnett on page 291:

“Innovation and Acceptance. From the standpoint of social consequences the fate of an innovation is

as important as its conception. Many new ideas are stillborn, and countless others are ephemeral and

perish without a trace. Some are only casual thoughts; others become cornerstones of faith. Some

affect only the innovator himself; others, millions of individuals. Some are bitterly resisted, others are

welcomed. For some the welcome comes early, for others it is tendered late. These are clearly matters

of importance, quite apart from questions concerning origins. …

“In discussions of this subject a distinction is sometimes made between the acceptance of a new idea by

people within the cultural sphere of the innovator and acceptance by those of other ethnic groups. The

growth in popularity of a new idea within the society of its origin then comes under the heading of

‘adoption,’ ‘acceptance,’ or some similar term, whereas the passage of an idea across ethnic boundaries

is usually referred to as its ‘spreading,’ ‘borrowing,’ or ‘diffusion’.”

As stated in my November 2011 vixra paper on the quantum gravity confirmed prediction of dark

energy and particle masses, the mechanism for Galileo’s social acceptance wasn’t a popular love for

freefall acceleration ideas, or a rotating earth. These ideas had been proposed by Aristarchus of Samos,

together with the solar system, in 250 BC but they were ignored as boring, and falsely “debunked” in

150 AD by Ptolemy’s earth-centred universe advert. Although Galileo introduced some experimental

evidence like rolling balls down inclined planes and dropping objects, his evidence could and was

easily ignored by bigots in positions of authority! Likewise, Darwin’s evolution had previously been

suggested, based on fossils found in rocks on high mountains, by Anaximander (or whoever it was).

The point is in both cases bigoted authorities refused to look at the evidence and the advocates of the

discoveries who were most forceful were those who were against the bigoted authorities and usedGalileo and Darwin as battering rams with which to attack, in pretty violent language, status quo!

This is something that is generally ignored entirely or severely downplayed by bigoted “histories” of

Galileo and Darwin, which perpetuate the myths that their experimental evidence smashed down

barriers and forced opponents to welcome them or throw in the sponge. My argument is that this is all

hogwash, for example Galileo’s evidence on rolling balls ignored the inertial momentum of rotation

and didn’t provide a direct measurement for the acceleration due to gravity; Darwin’s theory of

“continuous variation” contradicts the discrete nature of DNA mutations, etc. The point is, if Galileo

and Darwin didn’t have their ideas seized for use by anti-Pope, forceful pro-reform advocates who

used them for anti-establishment propaganda, they wouldn’t have become famous in the way theydid, which was probably a critically important way even to the present day.

They were and are both so famous not for being great scientists: plenty of other people did better

science but aren’t remembered, most being ignored even in their own time until after their death, like

Mendel of genetics fame. They were famous instead for being controversial news. Now this fact is

the source of a great deal of very obvious bigotry in science.

Famous scientists today will happily attack anyone trying to get attention for a correct alternative

theory of quantum gravity that made successful predictions, by labelling them “publicity seekers” or

“controversial”. But this ignores the hypocrisy that they don’t dismiss Einstein for “being

controversial” in 1905, they don’t dismiss Dawwin’s work for “being controversial”. You see where

I’m going, here? There’s definite hypocrisy. When you point this out, it becomes paranoia.

You’re then accused of “comparing yourself to Einstein”. But, that’s sophistry because if I compare

myself to some totally unknown, censored out figure that nobody has every heard of, like Aristarchus

of Samos, then you won’t understand my point because you won’t know what I’m talking about!

Similarly, if I accuse a bigoted dictator of behaving like “Hitler” I’m choosing Hitler as the analogy

because he’s a better known pseudoscientific eugenics lies dictator than Stalin who was even worse. If

I compare a dictator of science with Ptolemy, then nobody will know what I’m talking about.

Obviously, in comparing a science dictator to Hitler, I’m referring to Hitler in the 1920s or 1930s as

relevant, prior to the actual holocaust, although the IPCC liars have long begun making a holocaust

with their diversion of funds from the Third World industrial revolution, pushing up grain prices etc.

The key fact is that in the case of Galileo and Darwin, new media hyped the stories as being

controversial because there was an undercurrent of hatred directed against the autonomy of the Roman

Church and its illiberal attitudes on society. Thus, Galileo’s discoveries were used as propaganda for

ridiculing the pseudoscience of church science authorities like St Thomas Aquinas, who advocated

Aristotle’s pseudophysics, not Aristarchus’s solar system. Darwin’s discoveries were used for

ridiculing Biblical Creationism, again to undermine and make absurd the hard line attitudes of divine

authority used by the Catholic Church for maintaining hegemony, to collect money to justify invading

Africa to convert “heathen” and so on. Again, we emphasise: Galileo and Darwin became famous

because their loudest advocates seized on their “science” to use it as propaganda ammunition for

fighting the bigotry of hard line religious dogma.

The reason for emphasising this is that it just doesn’t sink in, it is dismissed or diluted by most

histories, and the message is crucially important for understanding the mechanism by which innovation

really occurs. It’s not and never has been driven by objectivity. Even today, the hard line Darwinists

are usually more interested in fighting Biblical Creationists than objectively evaluating errors in

Darwin’s theory, Darwin’s ignorance and avoidance of Mendel’s genetic mechanism for evolution, etc.

The implication of this that I wish to really emphasise here is this:

POPULAR SCIENCE = POLITICS.

MAYBE IN AN IDEAL WORLD THAT SHOULD NOT BE SO, BUT OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS OF ALL

THE FACTS PROVES OTHERWISE. STATING A FACT IS NOT ADVOCATING THE FACT!

TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT CORRUPTION DOESN’T MEAN YOU ENDORSE IT!

LOVING LYING FAIRY TALES IS NOT A VALID EXCUSE TO IGNORE THE FACTS.

IPCC LIES AND HATRED OF OBJECTIVE CRITICS PROVE THIS TODAY STILL APPLIES TODAY,

JUST AS IT DID IN THE TIME OF GALILEO AND OF DARWIN.

POPULAR SCIENCE IS A FASHIONABLE, LUCRATIVE, POLITICAL ENTERPRISE AND THE

SOONER THE WORLD STOPS CENSORING MESSENGERS OF THIS FACT AS “AUTISTIC”, THE

BETTER.

If you refuse to understand problems objectively, you effectively refuse to solve the problems. If you

want to understand how scientific revolutions come about to solve problems, you need to understand

conflicts, murder, oppression, hatred and war, and keep away from lying fairy tales written for babies.

ACCEPTORS OF INNOVATIONS

Barnett’s chapter 14, “Acceptors and Rejectors” deals with four classes of people who accept

innovation: Dissidents, Indifferent, Disaffected, and Resentful. In product marketing theory used in

retail industries, the sales cycle of a new innovation being with sales to “early adopters” who like being

the first to adopt new ideas and products, and ends with “laggards” who wait until a revolution is

complete before joining it. If you think of the Nazi or the Communist pseudoscience groupthink

revolutions, the first to join were the disaffected and the poor, those who felt personal hardship as a

result of overcrowding and poverty. This contradicts the fairy tales that would have you believe that in

a revolution, the rich and powerful are in control. It’s really the opposite. Barnett on page 318:

“The Dissident. There are substantial reasons for believing that there are individuals in every society

who have consistently refused to identify themselves with some of the conventions of their group.

They may give lip service to certain customs to avoid punishment, but they mentally or symbolically

shun them and would dispense with the necessity of conforming with them if they could. The more

courageous and independent these dissenters are, the more they openly rebel and withdraw from

participation in the offending customs. … the dissenter is certainly more likely to be attracted by a new

alternative for the custom in question than is the person who is satisfied with it. This is not to say, of

course, that a nonconformist will accept any new alternative. He has the freedom of choice with

respect to novelties just as does anyone else. The contrast to be made is between the conformer and the

dissenter, not between novelties; and when this is done it is evident that acceptance probabilities are

weighed on the side of the dissenter.”

In other words, as for Galileo and Darwin, the advocates come in the form of rebel “fellow travellers”

who are dissidents themselves, and object to status quo, and are more likely to consider an alternative

idea, than are mainstream leaders. This is important if true, because it would mean that a revolutionary

scientist should be writing not to try to reform mainstream leaders (as impossible as squaring the cicle),

but instead should be writing for fellow dissidents. This would affect the presentation and style of

writing needed, and also the outlet. If you are writing for poor dissidents, you might not actually be

helped by publishing through a limited print run at Cambridge University Press, with your book

overpriced and edited in pompous fashion. “Know your market,” goes the old marketing proverb!

On pages 385-6, Barnett considers the indifferent, i.e. pre-indoctrinated kids:

“The Indifferent. Many individuals are prepared to accept new ideas because they have not dedicated

themselves irretrievably to a custom or to an ideal of their society. Their receptive attitude is not due to

a dislike of existing conventions … On the other hand … they are not enthusiasts. They do not achieve

complete identification with the ideas … not being committed unequivocally, they find no

contradiction in adopting alternatives or in abandoning what others value. They are more open-minded

and objective than their opposites, those who have committed themselves. The greatest number of

individuals in this category are children … until and unless they have become indoctrinated … Harvey

remarked that no man over forty years of age accepted his discovery of blood circulation when it was

announced.”

On page 401, Barnett considers the really hardened, bitter revolutionaries, the Peter Thatchell’s and the

Marxist socialist agitators, who seize any excuse to protest against the injustices of illiberal dogmas:

“The Resentful. … the most highly valued goals [fame, wealth, happiness, power, influence, etc.] are

such just because comparatively few individuals are able to share them … Some people … feel that

they have been unfairly treated and never really accept … the lesser prizes … They are not resigned to

their fate … they are markedly receptive to the suggestion of a change which will at least equalize

opportunities, or perhaps even better, put them on top and their smug superiors on the bottom. … the

resentful individual is more susceptible to a suggestion of change because he has less to lose by

accepting it, and in extreme cases he has nothing at all to lose and everything to gain, so even a gamble

is attractive.”

Thus, Communism and Fascism took hold among the poor in bankrupt states. As Barnett points out on

page 127: “… the undervalued person wants personal recognition and has to innovate to get it …”

FAILURE OF PROTOTYPES, NASCENT INNOVATIONS, AND INITIAL MARKETING

“[Einstein’s] final manuscript was prepared and sent to the Physical Review. It was returned to him

accompanied by a lengthy referee report in which clarifications were requested. Einstein was enraged

and wrote to the editor [27 July 1936] that he objected to his paper being shown to colleagues before

publication… Einstein… never published in the Physical Review again.”

- Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord, the Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford University

Press, Oxford, 1982, p. 495.

There is a saying, “a stumble may prevent a fall.” Sometimes, as in the well-known case of Einstein

1936 paper submitted to the Physical Review disproving gravity waves, censorship does a helping

hand: Einstein’s paper was wrong in a detail. Without admitting an error, Einstein quickly discovered

the fault, reversed his conclusions and published the corrected paper elsewhere, saying that gravity

waves are indeed possible. Some advocates of peer-review try to use this as evidence that peer-review

was proved right in refusing to publish Einstein’s original 1936 paper with its error as it stood.

However, this assumes that it is a disaster for a paper with a mistake to get through peer review, i.e.

that errors must be detected and eliminated prior to publication. Suppose Physical Review had

published Einstein’s incorrect paper in 1936. It would now exist! The paper was lost or destroyed

after it was rejected. We would also have a concrete example of a genius making an error in print.

Now to listen to the censorship quacks paid to edit “peer”-reviewed journals, the universe would have

ended if that occurred. No good can come of publishing error as far as they’re concerned, and it’s the

whole basis of science to censor error. Let’s paraphrase the legal bias of innocent until proved guilty:

“Better for a hundred million mass murderers to go free, than to risk inconveniencing one innocent.”

This is applied to science “peer”-reviewed journals as follows:

“Better to publish a hundred million pages of worthless orthodoxy than to risk publishing one error.”

Barnett on pages 359-360 discusses partial errors in vital nascent scientific papers and experiments:

“Many [vitally important and partially correct] innovations, just because they are untried, are [at first]

clumsy, inefficient, and untrustworthy. Their uncertain or disappointing performance under test leads

to impatience and skepticism among persons who would otherwise welcome them. Prospective

acceptors are not willing to take a chance or serve as experimental subjects or dupes. They do

not want to invest in white elephants or to accumulate gimcracks. [Emphasis added] …

Vaccination was resisted … advocates … did not want to retreat from their earlier claims that it

afforded permanent immunity. Antisepsis was rejected by many doctors who … failed to achieve the

results claimed by Lister. In fact, by 1875 repeated failures by medical men in England, Germany,

Belgium, and Holland had led to reaction against its use. Lister’s advocacy of carbolic acid spray for

the atmosphere around a patient’s wound … was useless and could be harmful [although other ideas of

Lister, mixed up with errors like this, were useful!]. The first automobiles were cumbersome and

unreliable. … The practical realization of a new idea is very often a costly undertaking [even writing a

well organized and impressive textbook or paper that makes an impact costs research time and effort,

etc.]. … [In some crucially controversial cases] The idea is acceptable and has important implications,

but the returns to be expected are not commensurate with the investment required to produce it.”

Barnett explains on page 294 that because the failure of nascent ideas and newfangled prototypes:

“Embryonic innovations are frequently put aside through a lack of perseverance. Comparatively few

people have the persistence repeatedly to rework a basically good idea until it can meet the tests of

practicability or logical consistency. Most people lose their enthusiasm for their novel conceptions

with a few discouragements. Then, too, many do nothing because they know that innovators are

seldom honored and are often ruined, financially and otherwise, through being identified with their

ideas.”

A couple of comments on this passage: first, Faraday and Edison both made remarks to the effect that

they had a thousand failed prototypes or failed experiments per useful success in the laboratory or in

theoretical work. In other words, persevering and accepting a great deal of sifting through garbage or

failed junk is needed to weed out useful innovations. Faraday also allegedly made the remark to Queen

Victoria (or whatever) that a new nascent idea like electromagnetic induction is about as “useful” as a

new-born baby, in other words it’s a burden and useless until it has had years of investment, help, and

development. In addition, the fate of the unarmed poor innovator was lamented upon in an infamous,

cynical passage of The Prince, by Machivelli, who said basically that unarmed prophets and unarmed

innovators come to grief; people are only persuaded of progress by using gun-boat diplomacy threats.

EVOLUTION OF NASCENT IDEAS OR PROTOTYPES INTO BEST-SELLING RESULTS

Barnett states on pages 250-1 that it is usual for a great deal of evolution to take place before a

successful innovation is ready for acceptance by others:

“Almost every inventor finds that he must modify his initial conception before it becomes workable.

He has to ‘eliminate the bugs’ by trial-and-error experimentation. Rossman [Joseph Rossman, The

psychology of the inventor, Inventor’s Publishing Co., Washington, D.C., 1931, pp. 61-2] lists this step

as an essential one for most technological innovations; and, as he says, the final result may be entirely

different in form from the first idea, although the two very likely will have something in common.

“The end result of a long innovative series may be so far removed from the initial conception that it

gives no clue as to the characteristics of its ancestor. Successive elaborations upon it make devious

turns so that it is impossible to see any resemblance between the contemporary product and its early

beginnings.”

The difference between Lamarkian evolution and Darwinian evolution is an example. In order,

however, for a single person to do all of the development and evolution of an idea, a great deal of

perseverance or support is needed. Rossman’s The psychology of the inventor (Inventor’s Publishing

Co., Washington, D.C., 1931) reports at page 40 that professor inventors rated perseverance the most

important attribute for an inventor. People whose egos are damaged by failure and who have

committed themselves to their chosen innovation are likely to feel that self-respect demands persistence

until they succeed. This doesn’t clearly guarantee success where it is impossible (or where it requires

more than the devotion of a single person, which amounts to the same thing in most cases). But it can

allow success to be a possibility, whereas it would not be a possibility if someone lacked the ego, self-

control, or self-respect to drive perseverance.

COMMENTS ON WHY BARNETT’S INNOVATION WAS NOT SUFFICIENTLY WIDELY READ

This is a well-written but virtually unreadable book due to extremely small type. Even by using a

photocopier to enlarge each page by 150% from A5 to A4 size, the type then is only about 9 or 10

point. This poor publishing/printing probably explains why the book was well reviewed but has had

little impact. One good point is that footnotes are appended to the pages, not gathered in a list of book

or chapter end-notes, which make pseudo “academic” books unreadable.

“End notes” originated in the immense cost of page notes in the days of hot metal typesetting.

Linotype or monotype would be used to set galleys of type, and it was much cheaper to keep all the

notes together in lists at the end of the book than to have them divided up and appended to the

individual pages. Modern academia using computers no longer needs to burden the reader with

having to keep checking to the end of the book or chapter to read end-notes; it costs nothing to

append notes to pages on a computer. However, the quacks of academia that have nothing to offer

except imitation of “orthodoxy” prefer the end-notes to make their books “look professional”

regardless of the inconvenience to both writers and readers.